It's Been A Long Time
by x-Decent.Angel-x
Summary: Most things lose their beauty in time.


_**Okay so I've wanted to do something like this for a while. **_

_**What if Julian came back as a grotesque Shadowman? How would Jenny react to that? I know that it would take a long time for Julian to morph into something like that but I have just broken a lot of rules to make it happen.**_

Forbidden Game fanfiction, Jenny and Julian belong to L. , others are miiiiiine,  
I wrote this very quickly so let me know what you think!

Above her head, the pale pink remnants of dawn were diminishing, slowly replaced by a similarly pale blue that always made her smile. Lately, sleep hadn't seemed as important as being able to glimpse at the beautiful colour display outside her house, so she had made a habit of sleeping early and waking up as early as 3a.m to be certain she could see it. She rocked steadily in her sturdy, wooden rocking chair on the porch facing towards the front lawn and smiled contently at the awakening of her street; she loved watching her neighbour's morning rituals, such as the young parents rushing to take their sleepy, unkempt children to school, men dressed in suits and women in jackets and pencil skirts slipping off to work, and of course, the elderly tending to their early gardening chores. Gone were the days that she could call them 'old people', she was now among them, and a few of these elderly folk like Mrs Graham across the road, who joyfully waved to her as she slipped on her gardening cloves, were now dear friends to her. Naturally, the woman in the rocking chair waved back to Mrs Graham, smiling warmly in her direction. So many wonderful neighbours that never made her feel uneasy or lonely, she felt so very blessed, and after some time of watching and greeting the early birds, she reached forward to retrieve a very worn book and opened it to the bookmarked page.

Half an hour passed by. The street was now quieter, void of cars and youth, only the distant hum of a mower or two and the tweeting of little birds in the trees as background noise. One elderly woman with her thin, neatly curled brown hair wearing a very colourful flowery dress slowly made her way towards the woman's house, taking each step carefully to avoid her knees cramping.

"Good morning Jennifer!" the sprightly old woman squealed as she made her way up the stairs. Jennifer, who had been indulged in her book to the point that she'd forgotten the world around her, placed the book carefully back on the table and rushed over to help her friend with the unpleasant climbing task.

"Annabelle, hello!" Jennifer chuckled, offering her arms for balance then pulling her into a hug when she reached the landing.

"Come sit down with me, those stairs are such a hassle these days!" she gestured to her rocking chair and the three other wooden chairs around the table hospitably, and Annabelle complied with an appreciative smile. She sat herself opposite Jennifer.

"How have you been my dear friend? What's new with you?" Annabelle, ever-curious, inspected Jennifer's porch as she spoke, and reached forward to take the book and read the back of it. Jennifer only laughed at this typical behaviour.

"I have been very good, entertaining myself with books as always. I saw my grandchildren last weekend too, they're growing so fast."

"You have such a wonderful family! Makes me wish I'd had children of my own." Annabelle had opened the book and was reading the first page, her brows furiously furrowed together, "'Masque of the Swan', not generally the genres we read at our book club is it?" Jennifer laughed.

"No, not quite."

"_When Caralisa dances into the arms of a masked stranger, her life changes forever. Rumoured to be a devil, the seductive Count of Samothrace is the most dangerous man Caralisa has ever met. With a handsome nobleman also vying for her hand, Caralisa must make a decision that will affect not only her own life, but the future of her own country. Will Caralisa become the light of a young man's heart, or the object of a driven man's obsession? Torn between love and fear, she risks everything to find her heart's reward." _She glanced at Jennifer questioningly,

"Why would a lovely, decorous woman such as yourself read a book clearly intended for young teens?"

"I know it's rather cliché, I've had the book since I was a young woman," Jennifer glanced down at her long white skirt, feeling suddenly discomfited talking to her friend about her uncharacteristic taste in books, " mysterious handsome strangers, dark romance, it had always been my guilty pleasure."

"Like a Phantom of the Opera type of romance?" Annabelle inquired, a testing smile curling on her lips.

"Exactly like Phantom of the Opera." Jennifer giggled. The both sat and laughed on the porch for a while, talking about their teenage lives, what sort of boys they dated back then, regrets they had about their pasts. Jennifer decidedly left out the part where she was stalked and chased by an obsessive being from another world.

"Thomas Locke? I remember him! We went to college together all those years ago!" Annabelle exclaimed excitedly.

"Small world, though I suppose Tom and I have only ever lived in a small part of it." Jenny sighed,

"I wonder what he is doing now? I wonder if he still remembers me." She looked at her friend in the bright flowery dress grinning at her. The expression was infectious.

"Jennifer Thornton. Old soul, young heart." Annabelle teased. Jennifer suppressed a blush.

"Well my lovely, I must be off, I have lots of gardening and baking to get done!" Annabelle shakily attempted to haul herself out of her chair, and without a thought Jennifer rose to help her.

"I will see you later on or tomorrow."

"I look forward to it." Jennifer smiled at her friend as she hobbled down the stairs towards her house, and with a heavy sigh she glanced once more towards the sky, which was now a deeper shade of blue, picked up her book and headed back into her home.

Out of her window, Jennifer could see a couple of stars glistening in the early evening darkness. There was a fire crackling ahead of her blue velvet armchair, so the room was warm and comfortable even in late November. She didn't know how long she had been sitting in that spot sorting through her photo albums; it was after Mr Graham had brought over his wife's homemade chicken soup, and the phone call from her daughter asking if they could visit tomorrow for her birthday. Oh, and she had made herself a coffee. She had completely forgotten about that; the drink was sitting on her coffee table untouched by her newspaper that hadn't been read. Had she really been sitting there on autopilot for hours going through her photographs?

_It's like I'm in my own little world, _she thought absently, then felt her heart clench. That wasn't amusing, not when the next page had a picture of her whole family together. Zach and grandpa, two people whose lives had been turned upside down or ended by a world she never knew existed before that day. So long ago…..

A light breeze passed over Jennifer, causing her to shudder involuntarily, but she was too fixated on those carefree smiles to pay attention to the fact there was no possible way there could be a breeze in her home. Those smiles, lost to a world of suffering, made Jennifer feel very sad and lost. She stroked each one in turn, trying to remember every detail of their faces and clothes, trying to remember a time when nightmares were only in their heads.

The fire went out abruptly, making Jennifer jerk her head up. The room was now very dim and chilly, and was so quiet that Jennifer didn't dare breath. Those darker days were over, she knew it well, but with darkness always came fear, and she was suddenly curious about where the breeze was coming from. Hesitantly, she slid the album off of her lap and rose from her armchair, her heart beating a thousand times a minute. She bent by the fireplace to test if there was wind coming through there, but she only felt warmth there. Wrinkly hands shook by her sides as she searched for the source; a window slight open, her door not shut entirely, but everything was closed. The distant smashing of glass made her turn to face her bedroom door, and she gasped. Tendrils of white mist were creeping out from under the door; just looking at them gave her goose bumps all over her body. Something was happening in her room, and she knew, like it or not, she was going to have to find out. Her trembling hands met her lips in a moment of thought, contemplating the best way to go about this with her frail body, but before she could stop herself the words came out of her mouth.

"Hello?"

The mist thinned out quickly until it stopped pouring out entirely. Jennifer hadn't realised there had been a low hissing sound until it faded away into the silence and left her with the thumping of her heart ringing in her ears. She swallowed hard and looked around; there was nothing she could use as a weapon here. There was the heavy album, yes, and those tools by the fireplace, and of course the knives in the kitchen, but they wouldn't help. She wasn't stupid. There were Shadowmen in her room, the mist always announced the arrival of the elder Shadowmen, and they were in her _room_. She needed her rune book, which was in a drawer in her room, so she had no choice but to brave it. Maybe she could remember some runes, like binder Nauthiz? She could carve that into the drawers with a knife! Jennifer ran into the kitchen and grabbed one of the short but very sharp knives, and braced herself to open her bedroom. She pushed it open, and was met with a very surprising sight.

Blue eyes. Two beautiful blue eyes the colour of first light outside. She had sorely missed those eyes. And snow white hair that shone in the overhead light and glinted with every movement. It was Julian. At least Jennifer thought it could be Julian, because the thing standing in front of her no longer looked like Julian.

The thing had scaly skin like a snake covering its entire body, tinted in odd places in grotesque shades of blue and brown. It was hunched over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, with its spine jutting out unnaturally, and long yellowed claws curving out where nails should be. Other than that, the thing retained a basic humanoid form. It was alone, and stared at her with what she imagined was humiliation.

"Julian?" Jennifer choked, unable to tear her eyes away from this monstrous thing. The blue eyes flicked away from her for a moment to her full length mirror, then back to her with more sadness than she could bear.

"Hello Jenny." The musical voice almost broke her. It didn't belong to this creature standing before her, formed from the monsters in nightmares, from something that had once been so beautiful that there had never been words to describe that beauty, or those captivating eyes that forced her not to blink. In that voice she heard an eternity of sadness and uncertainty, and in those eyes she could see tiny droplets of waters that she knew were to become his tears.

"What happened to you?"

"This is what I am inside," He explained dully, gesturing to his scaly torso, "My elders took great pleasure in watching my transformation."

"I don't believe that." Jennifer cried, unable to link this thing with Julian. She walked over to where he stood by her dresser, all thoughts of runes and protection gone, and reached out a hand to touch him. He flinched away from her.

"Careful Jenny." He warned, but she didn't listen. He clearly didn't feel as powerful as he once did; they were both too old now for playing games, so she placed a hand on his cheek and felt the rough scaly texture of his new skin. Julian tilted his head towards her hand, gazing into Jennifer's familiar green eyes that were looking at his cheek.

"I have missed watching you grow up. You have aged well, unlike me." Julian tried to laugh, but there was too much longing in his tone for him to do so. She looked back to him, and some of the pain inside of him melted away. She was still so beautiful after all these years.

Jennifer didn't know what to say to comfort him, he looked so young and vulnerable staring down at her, even in this hideous form she could see his beauty. She wanted to reassure him that everything was going to be okay, but how could she know that? Julian's life was probably miserable, he'd always desired to fill his darkness with light, and now his body had been claimed by it, and soon his soul would be too. What else could he possibly have left to live for in his cruel unloving world?

You.

He has you, Jenny.

He came back for her. She didn't know how, she didn't dare ask how or why he was carved back into the Stave of Life, but despite everything he'd lost he still came back to look after her. And she'd missed him. She'd kept him in her thoughts while she read, and when she thought of the past, and every time she looked at her grandson and saw those innocent blue eyes gazing up at her. It didn't matter that time had transformed him into this anymore, it didn't even matter that he had taken away her carefree smile, all that mattered was that he was still her Julian, and he still had a soul that she has always known was good.

"I don't care how you look," she replied boldly, enjoying the stunned look on his face, "You will always be beautiful to me."

**R&R!**


End file.
